Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Okay, so here's where the dilemma starts: today is GraciAnn's, (my oldest daughter's) 5th birthday. Now, if I think about this long, I get very emotional. It's so hard to believe that the blue-eyed beauty entered our lives five years ago. I never knew I could love someone so much. She is amazing.

My Birthday Girl!

So, here's where the problem comes in. GraciAnn goes to a Montessori school that strongly focuses on healthy eating; therefore, a birthday treat means something extremely healthy. So, I searched for a healthy recipe and found these Pineapple-Zucchini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. Because I always want things to be a little healthier I changed them up a bit more. They turned out DELICIOUS! I'm pretty sure the kids will love them and even more sure the teachers will.

Here are the changes I made to the original cupcake recipe:
I omitted the white flour and used 1 1/2 cups of organic whole wheat flour
I substituted the 1 cup of white sugar with 2/3 cup of agave nectar
Instead of using oil, I used 2 tablespoons applesauce
*I used organic zucchini
*I used cage free eggs

As far as the icing goes, I used fat free cream cheese but couldn't figure out how to get the right consistency, for the icing, without the powdered sugar. I thought about agave nectar or honey, as a sweetener but thought the icing would be a little runny. Next time, I think I'll try honey. I can't imagine how powdered sugar could be healthy. The good news is there's only 1 cup of sugar for the entire icing recipe so it's not too terrible. The icing isn't very sweet. It's just right!

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